February 25, 2024
The word “terrorism” first appeared
in a U.S. federal law in 1969. Introduced by a Zionist congressman from New
York who claimed “terrorists” were training children in refugee camps for the
Palestinians forced from their homes by Israel, the provision banned U.S.
humanitarian aid from benefiting any refugee who received military training
from the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) or “has engaged in any act of
terror.”
While the law did not define
“terrorism,” it established a decades-long pattern of stigmatizing Palestinians
— and especially refugees — as “terrorists,” according to a new policy analysis
from Palestine Legal and the Center for Constitutional Rights. Israel had
responded to the revival of the Palestinian national movement in 1967 by
characterizing armed resistance to displacement as “international terrorism,”
and the racist trope of Palestinian refugee children as brainwashed killers was
born. Later, the first government-issued terrorism blacklist would be
championed in Congress by Israel’s supporters and overwhelmingly used to target
governments viewed as supporters of a liberated Palestine.
Fast forward to 2024. UNRWA, the
same United Nations refugee aid agency targeted by the 1969 law, is once again
under fire for alleged connections to “terrorists.” UNRWA is still the major
administrator of the humanitarian aid in Gaza, where an Israeli campaign of
bombardment and mass displacement in retaliation for the October 7 Hamas
attacks has left more than 29,000 people dead and a majority of the population
homeless in horrific conditions.
Israel recently accused a small
number of UNWRA employees of participating in the October 7 attacks but
provided little evidence. UNWRA immediately fired the employees and launched an
internal investigation, but the U.S. and several other wealthy nations
suspended support for UNWRA while aid for the desperate people starving and
dying in Gaza slows to a trickle.
A foreign policy that denies
Palestinian humanity is foundational to decades of U.S. anti-terrorism law and
is once again being weaponized by the Israel lobby against nonviolent antiwar
and Palestine liberation activists across the U.S., according to the Center for
Constitutional Rights. Since the word “terrorism” first appeared in federal
legislation in the wake of the 1967 Six-Day War, anti-terrorism statutes have
undermined free speech rights by criminalizing opposition to Israel’s treatment
of Palestinians, including the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.
“Understanding the ways that Israel
and its allies have shaped anti-terrorism laws is essential to challenging
their use today as a weapon to shut down both humanitarian lifelines to Gaza in
furtherance of this genocide, and the movement in the U.S. that is trying to
stop it,” said Dima Khalidi, director of the U.S.-based legal aid group
Palestine Legal, in a statement.
The Center for Constitutional Rights
previously filed a federal lawsuit against the Biden administration for failing
to prevent genocide in Gaza. While a federal court in California dismissed the
case on a jurisdictional technicality, the judge agreed with the International
Court of Justice that Israel’s siege and destruction of Gaza “plausibly falls
within the international prohibition against genocide” after hearing testimony
from experts and Palestinian victims.
The U.S. court urged the Biden
administration to reconsider its “unflagging support” for the war. Israel
flatly denies the allegations, arguing that its only goal is to eradicate its
enemy, Hamas, which continues to hold about 100 Israelis hostage in hopes of
striking a deal to free Palestinian political prisoners in an exchange.
Meanwhile, the Israeli military is
annihilating life in Gaza with U.S. weapons and resources. From President Joe
Biden’s unconditional support for Israel to the anti-Muslim animus embedded in
President George W. Bush’s “war on terror,” modern U.S. policy toward the
Middle East is rooted in a long-standing hostility toward the Palestinian cause
in the form of a growing body of anti-terrorism law. Here’s a consolidated
timeline from Palestine Legal and the Center for Constitutional Rights’
analysis:
- The first government-issued terrorism blacklist was championed by Israel’s supporters in Congress and has been overwhelmingly used to pressure governments accused of supporting Palestinian resistance.
- The first and only time Congress has labeled a nonstate group a terrorist organization was in a 1987 law aimed at the Palestine Liberation Organization.
- The first immigration law [passed in 1990] to include terrorism as a basis for exclusion and deportation singled out the PLO in its definition of terrorist activity.
- The first law [passed in 1992] authorizing private terrorism lawsuits was drafted to target the PLO and has been heavily used by dual citizens of Israel and the United States.
- The first financial sanctions blacklist of terrorist organizations was created in response to Israeli demands to crack down on Hamas and other Palestinian factions.
- Although the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing was perpetrated by domestic extremists, the anti-terrorism provisions passed in its wake — including the material support statute — targeted only foreign groups, with Palestinian organizations being a primary concern.
The Palestine Liberation
Organization is an interesting case. Founded in 1964, the PLO is an umbrella
group that for decades embodied the Palestinian national movement and was
broadly seen Palestine’s representative on the international stage.
However, in 1987, the PLO also
became the first and only nonstate actor to be declared an “terrorist
organization” in a law passed by Congress after a rogue faction known as the
Palestine Liberation Front killed a U.S. citizen during a 1985 hijacking of a
cruise ship. The law directed the U.S. government to remove the PLO’s observer
mission from the offices of the United Nations, an effort only stymied by
international outcry and legal intervention.
For much of the 1990s, former PLO
leader Yasser Arafat was the architect for the Palestinian side of the
U.S.-backed peace negotiations with Israel. “Terrorist” designations are
typically made by the State Department, which removed the PLO from its nonstate
“terrorist” list in 1993 after Arafat renounced violence and began a decade of
peace negotiations that fell apart in the early 2000s.
While Arafat worked for peace, he
was also criticized for failing to stop acts of violent resistance by militant
factions perceived to fall under the PLO umbrella. However, Israeli state
violence is a fact of everyday life for thousands of Palestinians living in
refugee camps and occupied territories.
While not representative of the
Palestinian population and diaspora, the armed wing of Hamas and smaller
militant groups are currently waging guerrilla resistance against Israel, a
much more powerful foe. Hamas is broadly seen as engaging in terrorism when its
fighters attacked and abducted civilians during the “Al-Aqsa Flood” operation
on October 7.
Israel retaliated by terrorizing the
entire population of Gaza, leaving tens of thousands of civilians injured or
dead, and entire communities reduced to rubble. Israeli propaganda exploits the
trope of the Palestinian “terrorist” to justify the slaughter in Gaza as well
as the mass incarceration of Palestinians accused of “supporting terrorism,” a
broad charge often levied against young men and teenagers who spend years in
jail for attending street protests and throwing stones.
Back in the U.S., the foreign policy
establishment — along with the Israel lobby and its allies in media —
instrumentalizes Islamophobia and attempts to redefine “antisemitism” in order
to defuse opposition to Israeli military operations, according to human rights
scholars. By conflating criticism of Israel with “antisemitism” and the fight
for Palestinian rights with support for “terrorism” and Hamas, right-wing and
Zionist groups leverage anti-terrorism and anti-boycott laws in the U.S. to
shut down campus protests and punish peaceful BDS activists.
Many Arab and Muslim Americans see a
double standard. For example, Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Michigan) — the only
Palestinian American in Congress — was censured by her colleagues for sharing a
video of Palestinian rights activists at a protest and agreeing with
international human rights groups that many Palestinians live under apartheid
conditions imposed by Israel.
Would another member of Congress
face such a rebuke and public shaming for calling out human rights abuses in a
Muslim country? Probably not. But take a look at just about any corner of
social media, and you’ll find bigots claiming that Tlaib is not a peaceful
lawmaker but a “terrorist.”
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